Trip to the Cook Islands

  • Thanks to Justin and Steve, I was given the opportunity to visit the Cook Islands.
  • This was a follow up workshop related to the People, Planet, Prosperity (3P) Project.
  • I attended the Cook Islands 3P project follow up meeting.
  • The Cook Islands are one of 10 countries in this project.
  • The Cook Islands’ Project was a collaboration with ADB, Cook Island NES, and Cook Islands MFEM.

Trip to the Cook Islands

3Ps: Cook Islands

  • A major issue for the Cook Islands is coastal flooding and wasterwater pollution.
  • Specifically in a popular tourist destination – Muri Lagoon on the main island of Rarotonga.
  • Over the past year, NatCap Stanford piloted a case study project creating natural capital assessments to assist local members in evaluating options related to potential urban and water projects

My Goal for the Trip

  • In the first meeting (2024), GEP was mentioned.
  • The attendees were excited to learn more about this measure.
  • So I attended the follow up meeting to introduce the concept (Jan. 2025)
  • My attendance aimed to:
  1. Educate about GEP
  2. Gauge interest in estimating GEP
  3. Assessing capacity to estimate GEP for Cook Islands

Muri Lagoon Natural Capital Assessment

  • Muri Lagoon is a major source of economic activity for the country.
  • But poor coastal management with high tourism is degrading their sacred atolls
  • The NatCap team used InVEST to evaluate counterfactual solutions to improve:
    • Water treatment (pollution)
    • Coastal erosion (flooding)
    • Nutrient runoff
  • To determine financing of these options, NatCap performed a choice experiment to measure Willingness-to-Pay
    • E.g., price for solutions
    • Surveyed 420 people: 324 residents, 96 tourists

Muri Lagoon: Landcover

Muri Lagoon: Recreation Value

Muri Lagoon: Possible Solutions

Muri Lagoon: Restoration Benefits

Muri Lagoon: Willingness-to-Pay

GEP for Cook Island Trip

  • At the workshop, I presented an introduction to GEP.
  • There was some interest in the room, but interest dissipated after the workshop.
  • We met with Minstry of Financial and Economic Management (MFEM) and National Environmental Service (NES).
  • Notably, no one from Statistics attended any meetings.

GEP for Cook Island Trip

For the Cook Islands, we hit a road block.

  • On the Islands, they do not have funding or capacity to support this project.
  • They are interested if someone else can estimate GEP, but not themselves.
  • Estimating GEP independetly would be difficult.
    • Data is siloed in departments with no data hub
    • Data is often ad hoc and out of date
  • Follow up meetings with NatCap Stanford did not lead to a continuation of the project.

Potential Path Forward

  • Working with Jade Delevaux (NatCap Stanford)
  • Build guide for practioners to use GEP in practice.
  • Benefits:
    • Generates public GEP data sets
    • Useful for input to research and assessing environmental progress
  • Jade would like a use case to be Belize
    • 10 year partnership, centralized data hub

Practionier’s Guide to GEP

Main Features:

  • Defining Terminology
  • Providing methods to measure ecosystem services
    • Nature’s contribution
    • Price
    • Quantity
  • Discuss equations, data requirements, and limitations
  • Recommendations for reporting standards
    • SNA and SEEA EA

Hopeful Product has Competition

The aim is to produce some living document (website) with best practices.

  • There already appears to be a market for this (competition).
    • Two papers in Ambio and J of Resources and Ecology spelling out recommendations
    • JRC Techincal reports on application and theory
    • Guidelines by SEEA EA for integration of GEP.
    • Ljing has mentioned a Chinese textbook on GEP: “Theory and Method of Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) Accounting” (English translation next year)